Identifying Purposes and Characteristics of Memory

“More memory, more memory, I don’t have enough memory!” Today, adding memory is one of the most popular, easy, and inexpensive ways to upgrade a computer. As the computer’s CPU works, it stores data and instructions in the computer’s memory. Contrary to what you might expect from an inexpensive solution, memory upgrades tend to afford the greatest performance increase as well, up to a point. Motherboards have memory limits; operating systems have memory limits; CPUs have memory limits.

To visually identify memory within a computer, look for several thin rows of small circuit boards sitting vertically, potentially packed tightly together near the processor. In situations where only one memory ...

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